Blog: Is Jesus a Myth?

You may as well deny the existance of the Roman empire because their mentioned in the Bible. That doesn’t change the historic events that took place and altered history.

“If I had Jesus’ miraculous powers and insider’s relationship with an almighty God, I would have helped the young Hitler to become a more talented and successful artist, like Picasso.”

It’s really annoying how everyone knows what Jesus would do with divine powers. Change peoples lives. Jesus didn’t change anyone’s life, he let everyone make their own decisions. That was his message.

And I own a Porshe, not a Ford.

Um, the Roman Empire is mentioned in a few more places than the Bible. They built a lot of things that you can still visit.

It’s true that Jesus let Henry Ford Sr. and Hitler make their own decisions. George W. Bush too, I suppose. Do you think Bush ever asked Jesus to help him with his decisions?

Jesus: “No, it’s up to you George. You want to kill and maim 200,000 people, men, women and children, in Afghanistan and Iraq, go ahead. You want to violate the Geneva Convention and torture prisoners, go ahead, it’s your call. But please, stop telling people that I support you. Bad Conduct supports you, not me. My message is to let all you scalawags make your own decisions.

“Furthermore, if Henry Ford wants to write scatalogical books about Jews, inspire Hitler, and send Adolf birthday presents of 50,000 Deutch Marks year after year, that’s his decision. I didn’t come here to bring peace, but a sword! Wait a minute, delete that last remark! Paul? Paul, are you listening? Delete that last remark! The hawks are going to take that and run with it, causing mayhem. Paul! Dammit!”

Your comment represents an ignorance on the history of the mythicist position, the mountain of evidence compiled and the fact that academia not only has NOT refuted it, but it never took the time to study it seriously in the first place - largely because of the same arrogant attitude you display here. This ignorance is probably also due to the fact that many major universities began as religious institutions, such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton & many more. Plus, let’s not forget about the donations from religious institutions over the years. And if that weren’t enough, the history of scholarly timidity in the face of Bibliolatry caused many great scholars to lose their occupations and, thus, their research. Hence, we have the huge academic gap between theologians and historians today. There’s a monumental vacuum, and the mythicist position can fill that void.

“inept” ?

From where I stand, the “inept” would certainly be those who rigidly adhere to a historical biblical Jesus based on no valid evidence whatsoever after 2,000 years, all the investigations & loads of money spent on them - what do they really have to show for it? How many more thousands of years do you need? I think the believers and the evemerists have had their shot - and they’ve utterly failed in THEIR ineptitude.

Now, it’s time for the mythicists. Their work has been suppressed, censored, destroyed and ridiculed by unscientific ignoramuses. Up until the last few decades, mythicists were not allowed to publicly oppose the church - as it would certainly cost them their jobs and possibly their lives.

clayforHim648, your comment is extremely insulting to all Freethinkers who have actually studied the mythicist position.

oi…

You realize, of course, that if you demonize the authorities on any given subject you could convince yourself of just about anything, right? You sound convincingly like a conspiracy-theorist, and I’m not just saying that because I believe Jesus was an actual living, breathing human. It’s interesting to me how forum-goers here would reference mainstream scholars and authorities from just about any given area of study EXCEPT if it has to do with religion or the Bible. I mean, cmon, you can’t be serious about Harvard and the others’ religious foundation… It’s not like the liberal scholars at any of those institutions are “holding on” to a historical Jesus by some deep-seated commitment to Christ as Lord. Seriously now….”those who rigidly adhere to a historical biblical Jesus based on no valid evidence”? We’re not talking about Pat Robertson, we’re talking about Bible scholars!

Regardless, you’re going to have to continue to live with disappointment until the mythicist position somehow comes up with convincing evidence of the non-existence of Jesus Christ. As it stands, even with much of the NT under extreme scrutiny by scholars with all different biases, the existence of a real religious figure in antiquity named Jesus Christ is highly likely and seldom called into question. As much as you’re claiming bias and academic suppression, the zeitgeist is constantly pushing for liberation from old fashioned traditionalism, especially in the religious realm. And despite the push, scholars of all stripes still affirm the personhood of Christ in history. But maybe you can see into the future…

As a side note, I think the association with religious belief and “blind faith” often gets people a little too excited about claiming Jesus as a myth, or part of a larger one. I think that is a mistake. It makes sense for you, as a freethinker, to be hostile towards religious faith in general and all that comes with that, hence this web site and the author associated with it. It doesn’t make sense, however, to flatly deny historical evidence in order to feed your confirmation bias…which, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, is what atheists are consistently accusing Christians of doing at every corner.

“If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.” -Epictetus

Rom 1:3 “Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;”

Again, if Jesus was a known historical figure, why would Paul need to emphasize that he was “made of the seed of David according to the flesh?” And, what valid evidence demonstrates King David was a historical figure? This really sounds like the author is combating Docetism, which would mean it was interpolated sometime during the second century, when the claim was that Jesus had only existed as a “phantom,” not in the flesh.

Paul simply mentioned Jesus being in the lineage of David as supporting evidence of Jesus’ claim to being the Messiah. What evidence do you have that Docetism existed in 57 CE when Paul wrote Romans? And if Paul is combating Docetism, doesn’t that indicate that he considered Jesus to be real?

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, of any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth”
“Thou shal not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord they God am a Jealous God…”

So any image (Jesus) or likeness of something on the earth (human) and bowing down to it (Church) is the second commandment.

Even if Jesus was the son of God, it would be a sin to worship him. Truthfully, God should be the father of everyone. That would make Jesus no more or less important than you or I.

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, of any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth”
“Thou shal not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord they God am a Jealous God…”

So any image (Jesus) or likeness of something on the earth (human) and bowing down to it (Church) is the second commandment.

Even if Jesus was the son of God, it would be a sin to worship him. Truthfully, God should be the father of everyone. That would make Jesus no more or less important than you or I.

That’s funny! The quote is talking about other gods in the earth and “the water under the earth” which is the Babylonian cosmology of a water universe (which is what the bible says. So that really just shows that the bible is wrong, LOL!

Why is there Something instead of Nothing: No reason or ever knowable reason.

Actually Eudo, there is a lot of evidence for a global flood. That is ignorance.

There’s a difference between blind faith and applied knowledge.

The Bible obviously wasn’t written in today’s standards, but I know that our interpretation of it is incorrect. If you examine anything from a ‘scientific perspective’, you’ll find a loop hole or an inconsistancy, even science itself is inconsistant and full of loop holes.

If I start to look at every book from your perspective, I’d have a hard time finding one that was 100% accurate and consistant with true events. I’m sure George W. Bush’s biography has a few inconstantacies with how he presieved his own life, and how others saw it unfold.

The same goes for any scientific text book. They make claims that are proven false, sometimes within a year, and need to be corrected. I’m looking at my “Cambell Reese Biology: Eigth edition” and I can garrentee there will be a 9th.

“Hitler’s invasion of Russia was a rash plan that turned the side of the war in the allies favour. As soon as winter hit, the Nazi generals realized they had been walking on thin ice all along.”

Well, this must be bullshit! You can’t walk on thin-ice in the winter!

You, atheists, all of you, are too ignorant. You are just disputting one version of events simply because you have a personal grudge against religion, or you just enjoy arguing with religious people. You an hardly claim that “atheists make the world a better place” when all you do is stereotype and discriminate, often even harsher than your rivals.

A reference to a holy event may be totally inaccurate. I love the Zeitgeist idea, that all religions are making reference to precision of the stars.

This would mean that Jesus is representative on Pices, the two stars. Jesus may not be a real “living breathing” human, but he still represents something that IS real.

You can argue and call me names if you want, that’s what atheists do when they get upset, but I’m not going to discredit and 2000 year old reference book simply because there are a few translated key points that I don’t understand well enough to make a yes or no judgement.

And unsmoked, you make up what you think Jesus and Paul said, than tell me it’s not possible. Well obviously, it’s made up. You realize that sarcasim is the worst form of criticism?

That’s funny! The quote is talking about other gods in the earth and “the water under the earth” which is the Babylonian cosmology of a water universe (which is what the bible says. So that really just shows that the bible is wrong, LOL!

That’s just your intepretation. What’s the earth beneth heaven? Isn’t the heavens space? Why would water and heaven refer to the same thing?

Rom 1:3 “Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;”

Again, if Jesus was a known historical figure, why would Paul need to emphasize that he was “made of the seed of David according to the flesh?” And, what valid evidence demonstrates King David was a historical figure? This really sounds like the author is combating Docetism, which would mean it was interpolated sometime during the second century, when the claim was that Jesus had only existed as a “phantom,” not in the flesh.

Paul simply mentioned Jesus being in the lineage of David as supporting evidence of Jesus’ claim to being the Messiah. What evidence do you have that Docetism existed in 57 CE when Paul wrote Romans? And if Paul is combating Docetism, doesn’t that indicate that he considered Jesus to be real?

I got it to work.

Why do I need evidence? If there is evidence, it will be found. I’m not an archaeologist, but simply because the evidence hasn’t been found, doesn’t discredit the whole story.

Look at Human evolution. There’s no hard evidence, but what we do have seems to show that point.

Most Christians today are interested in ‘worshiping’ Jesus, and celebrating the miraculous mythologies that were borrowed from pagan gods so that their hero could outperform the others. The teaching in Mathew (above link) is anethema to most Christians. It was quite original back then, and still is. After 9/11, can you imagine George W. Bush getting together with Ben Ladin to discuss mutual grievances. “You want us to pull our military bases out of your holy land? Let’s discuss this Ben. What else can we do to help you?”

Somebody said that Mathew paragraph, and somebody wrote it down for posterity. The supernatural myths cheapen it, and distracts from the wandering preacher’s originality - his attempted contribution to human evolution. “Folks, we’ve got tooth and claw and revenge and territorial imperative in our genes, but I say to you, weapons are going to become so deadly, we’ve got to find another way to live.”

“The simple fables of the religious of the world have come to seem like tales told to children.” - Nobel Prize recipient - Francis Crick

The writers of the New Testament were “ignorant, unlettered men” who produced “superstitions, fanaticisms, and fabrications.” - Thomas Jefferson